Courts and Crime

A Forest man was sentenced for an amended sexual battery charge in Bedford Circuit Court Tuesday.
Kyle Richard Tomko, who had originally been charged with the felony of aggravated sexual battery, had his charge amended to misdemeanor sexual battery. He pleaded no contest to the sexual battery charge, as well as to a felony abduction charge.

Michael Thomas Loboschefski, accused of killing an Amherst County woman in a shootout last August, pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter and reckless handling of a firearm in Bedford County Circuit Court on Tuesday.
Loboschefski, 30 of Huddleston, was initially charged with aggravated malicious wounding, maliciously shooting at an occupied vehicle, felony murder and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony.

“Quite a shock,” commented District 3 Supervisor Roger Cheek. “I would have never thought that in a million years. That’s not the Tony I knew.”
Cheek was responding to the charges in which Earl Anthony (Tony) Ware has been arrested on seven counts of embezzlement and seven counts of money laundering. The charges stemmed from Ware’s connection to the Big Island Fire Department, the estate of Hattie Routon and a benefit for children.

Last Tuesday, Bedford County Circuit Court Judge James Updike handed down a sentence on two counts of DUI maiming to 42-year-old Elizabeth Doris Coe.
She received two years in prison with five years suspended for each of the two counts of DUI maiming, and 12 months in prison and a $1,000 fine for one count of DUI, totaling 11 years suspended after five years served.

Editor’s note: Dan Plattus, former Bedford Main Street Inc. director, issued this statement concerning the embezzlement charge that was dismissed last week by General District Court Judge Harold Black.

The embezzlement charge filed against the former director of Bedford Main Street has been dismissed.

Bedford County General District Court Judge Harold Black issued his ruling Friday, stating that the charge against 46-year-old Daniel A. Plattus was dismissed, denying the attempt to have the charge certified to the grand jury.

A Bedford man was sentenced for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon in Bedford Circuit Court Tuesday involving a case in which two dogs were shot and killed.
John Wayne Surface Sr., 70, was sentenced on the charge related to having shot and killed his neighbor’s two dogs last year.

The 26-year-old Evington woman accused of embezzling from Kroger in Forest waived her right to a preliminary hearing May 14.
Jennifer Elaine Johns faces 15 embezzlement charges, eight felonies and seven misdemeanors. A Bedford County grand jury will now decide whether to indict Johns on the felony charges.